Growing Older, Growing Together
by Slipgate
Summary: In this, my first story posted to FFNet, a probing question at an interview prompts a later fluffy recollection between a future married Kim and Ron Stoppable.


**Title: Growing Older, Growing Together**

**Story summary: In this, my first story posted to FFNet, a probing question at an interview prompts a later fluffy recollection between a future married Kim and Ron Stoppable.**

_**Disclaimer: Kim Possible (or Stoppable), Ron Stoppable, and the events of the **_**Kim Possible**_** television series alluded to in this fiction are all the property of Disney, and are used without intent or expectation of profit solely for personal enjoyment. The debts I owe other fanfiction authors are indicated in my author's note after the end of the story.**_

**~*~*KP*~*~**

**Growing Older, Growing Together**

**by Slipgate**

The director finger-counted the end of the commercial break and then signaled "go" with his hands. The commercial break was over and taping resumed again. Kim and Ron sat in high-backed chairs to the side of a table, behind which sat Miss Shayla Martin. Shayla had requested the couple appear for an interview, and while they didn't feel they were show business celebrities, the Stoppables had debated it briefly and decided they should go for it since they'd never previously received such an invitation.

Before the break, the studio audience and the audience watching at home had gotten to hear some of Kim and Ron's history, including pictures from different points in their lives as they'd been growing up. Ron had a small smile any time he recognized a picture as having also been in the cyber-scrapbook Kim had given him one memorable Christmas.

Shayla had actually been fairly polite and respectful for the most part. Admittedly, Kim was more well-known than Ron but she had been more ignorant than obnoxious at worst. Still, she did have a question on her mind that she hoped wouldn't come out as offensive for the couple before her.

"Welcome back to the _Too Late Show_ with Shayla Martin," she greeted studio audience and future TV audience alike. "We've been talking with Kim and Ron Stoppable about their history, their adventures, and anything and everything in between."

She turned to Kim and Ron. Kim was wearing a dark navy button-down blouse and a maroon skirt, and Ron was wearing a white shirt and a blue sweater-vest as well as some stone-colored khakis. Ron's outfit was of course part of the influence of growing closer to Kim (and her being insistent on what did and didn't get bought in the clothing stores), and Kim's outfit reminded Ron somewhat of the stylish number she'd worn on the first year of their junior year in high school. It wasn't the same outfit, of course – it had been a few years – but it did make him think of it for some reason. Of course, Shayla was ignorant to these finer points about their wardrobe.

"Okay, so I have a question for the two of you," Shayla began. "We've been looking at these childhood pictures. Don't get me wrong, but I look at these childhood pictures you're so proud of, and I can't help but see a kind of awkward-looking boy with really big ears and pronounced freckles. And even as he's grown up and buffed up, I can't help but notice that the ears and the freckles somehow remain. I just am a little perplexed at how you eventually thought that this was the guy for you?"

Shayla could see Kim immediately open her mouth to retort and she hastily added, "Don't get me wrong, I'm not being critical of Ron himself. I'm just trying to understand how you arrived at the decision considering what we see. I mean, okay, I guess that doesn't make much sense either, but I'm having trouble phrasing what I want to ask here, I guess."

Having paused for Shayla's addition, Kim again spoke up, and Ron found her hand with his in a squeeze to make sure she didn't go too ballistic. "Well, Shayla, I'm not sure of the question exactly, but I don't understand giving me a hard time about my choice. I mean, growing up I may not have initially thought of my Ron in those terms, that is, I may not have thought of 'attractive' and 'Ron' in the same thought, but that had more to do with how he was a friend I didn't think of that way. I do consider him attractive now. For example, I find his ears sexy."

Kim paused a moment as hoots or laughs interrupted her train of thought. Ron still wouldn't blush, but he also took a moment to recover. She regained control and continued. "But what's most important, and I'm not saying he's unattractive to me when I say this… there's so much more than the physical attraction that I'm in love with and everything else I'm in love with matters too, and probably matters more. I don't understand, and I apologize of this sounds like a rant, because I've heard tons of them in my time and I have no patience for them either, but I don't understand why so many press or media outlets need to get so interested or get so critical about my choice in men. I know it was just one question for you, Shayla, but I have to say to all the speculating press of the world: Does it really matter to you if I consider him the guy for me? I mean, if he makes me happy as the guy for me, what does my choice in men matter to everyone else?"

Kim seemed slightly embarrassed. Shayla imagined that this was something she usually tried to bite her tongue on, but that it couldn't help but bleed out here. After a moment, Shayla continued and tried to disarm the hostile intentions that had been read into the situation. "Oh no, I understand, Miss Poss-Mrs. Stoppable," she hastened to correct herself, "I understand. I didn't phrase it well but I'm just kind of curious, looking back at these pictures, how you got from Point A," she vaguely indicated the pictures with a finger, "to Point B." she finished with a sweep of her hand in the general direction of her two guests who sat side by side with wedding bands on.

"Well, there were little things here and there that at first were subtle and then eventually couldn't be ignored," Ron offered.

"Such as?" Shayla inquired solicitously.

"Well, as we got closer to when we did get together, there were little things that started cropping up. I remember when Kim got a new female best friend that I couldn't help but think I would get left in the dust. Kim eventually realized how left-out I was feeling, even admitted it to this friend, and tried to make amends with me. I know that might not sound like much on its own," Ron hastened to add when he saw that Shayla had opened her mouth to respond, "but when you add to that the time I found a best male friend to spend time with in addition to Kim, she also got to be really concerned and jealous about the time not spent with her, it makes a kind of funny parallel."

"Oh yes, the Ron Night debacle," Kim muttered. Shayla looked puzzled, so Kim admitted, "Ron is on to something here. Even though Ron was my best friend and I dated guys other than Ron when I thought of dating, we'd eventually gotten to a point where I considered Friday nights 'Ron Night.' That meant that I had an expectation to be spending time with Ron on Friday night instead of doing other things. Now of course, here we are with a girl who is trying to date other people but is keeping Friday night reserved for her time with a specific guy. I can't help but wonder in retrospect if the comparative infrequency of my dates wasn't because of an impression I was giving off there. That said, at least the guys in Middleton High seemed to have it clear that I wasn't calling Ron my boyfriend or saying I was dating him."

"Anyway," Ron steered the conversation back on track, "what had happened was that I sort of hadn't thought of this Friday tradition as something too official, and had made some plans with this male friend of mine. The result was that Kim literally had no plans made for her Friday night since she'd been counting on me, and that she began being extremely jealous of seeing how much time I was spending with this guy until we hashed out what was upsetting her. Again, this was as friends but an adult seasoned in life would be able to look at that and realize what we didn't realize ourselves there."

"However," Kim said, "the truth is we were growing up, still, and weren't quite yet at the point where we seriously saw each other that way yet. We were getting there – much closer to there by the time of the story we just told you, but we weren't there yet."

"There's a funny story about how we were 'starting' to look attractive to each other I can tell, though," Ron added with relish. Kim could tell he felt happy that he actually could talk and be listened to in this interview. "Way, way back when, in our sophomore year of high school, Kim and I were in an argument about which of us had it easier."

A moment's thought alarmed Kim slightly, as she realized this was before the brain switch. Her head whipped over to look at Ron but he smiled at her with a thumbs-up that said "trust me." She calmed down. "Well, in this argument of ours, Kim at one point said, 'You make it sound like my life is cake.' I responded, 'Well let's see. You're smart, athletic, pretty and popular. Sounds pretty cakey to me.'"

Ron paused a moment to allow the lines to be processed, then continued. "See, at around that time, Kim may not have thought of me as the guy for her… she thought of me as her friend… but one of those gradual steps forward to Point B, as you put it, was that at this point I already recognized that she was pretty. I wasn't necessarily thinking of her as the girl for me either, yet, but basically even as friends and even in the middle of an argument I could spout out that she was pretty like it was a fact. We were both young, though, and I know that she eventually started to find me attractive and now we both find each other attractive, on top of everything else we share."

"So you consider that you thought she was pretty a big step?" Shayla asked, with a faint tone of disbelief.

"Maybe I'm not explaining it well, either," Ron admitted with a laugh. "But I didn't actually go throwing that word around back then, even with girls I was trying to ask out or was crushing on, yet I was able to regularly use it in relation to Kim without even thinking as to how awkward an impression that might give others, or how if I said it to any other girl they might not talk to me normally like I did with Kim. I'm not trying to say I 'beat' Kim to thinking of her as attractive first, either… I was just giving an example of one of those little snowflakes that gradually came in and finally created an avalanche by the time our junior year of high school was ending."

The interview continued on for a time past that, using some questions that were better-phrased to not have misunderstood hostility.

**~*~*KP*~*~**

After the interview taping, Ron and Kim drove out to the harbor looking out toward the Statue of Liberty. They sat on the edge with their feet dangling out above the water as they watched the twilit sky. They had been having a casual conversation which eventually lapsed into a comfortable silence.

Eventually Kim looked at her husband and saw that he seemed excessively contemplative. "Ron?" she asked softly, "What's on your mind honey?"

"I'm just thinking about that interview," Ron replied.

"Ron, you're not seriously thinking about what that interviewer was saying are you?"

Ron looked at Kim.

"I mean, Ron, we grew… that is, when we were growing up, I didn't immediately think of you in terms of being attractive or not because you were my _best friend_. It's not anything against you. It's just that I was still young and I grew up. You're not letting yourself get bummed about what Shayla thought, are you? Regardless of what I thought in the past, I was a kid growing up and now I am grown up and you know that you're my choice. You're my guy."

"Oh no, no. It's not that Kim. I understand that. I just find myself thinking over all the stuff that we've been through and, you know, what actually brought us to here. Because, I mean, it could've happened and it could've not happened. I was just thinking over how we got to the point that we _were_ thinking of each other this way as we grew up."

"Well you know Ron, something I am curious about." Kim began, perking her husband's attention.

"What's that, Kim?"

"Considering you were able to recognize me as being 'pretty' even before either of us were thinking about each other like this, I'm curious at what point did you start to recognize me as 'pretty' when we were growing up? At what point did you look at your best friend and realize, 'hey, this best friend of mine is pretty.'"

Ron smiled. "I notice you called _yourself_ pretty there a lot."

"I'm not trying to be vain, Ron. I'm seriously curious when _you_ started thinking of _me_ that way."

Ron folded his hands in his lap and looked down at them briefly, thinking back. Then he looked up and met Kim's eyes with his own. "To tell you the truth, Kim, and I'm not saying this to get brownie points, and I don't want you to interpret it that way, but I actually think you were my introduction to the word 'pretty.'"

Kim raised an eyebrow. "Oh yeah, Captain Romance?" she snarked.

Ron retorted, "I'm serious, Kim! Like I said, I'm not trying to use this as a line or as being hokey or anything. I just mean that when we were growing up, I didn't necessarily hear that word before I met you. Once I started associating with other kids at Pre-K, which was mostly you as you know, then I started hearing the word 'pretty' in relation to you. Like the teacher would say to you one day, 'Oh that's a very pretty dress Kimmie,' or my mom or your mom would say, 'Oh don't you look so pretty.' Stuff like that."

Kim was surprised, somewhat, but she had to admit that sometimes you just learned words when you started hearing them applied to stuff.

Ron continued, "And… it was just like, I was learning this word, 'pretty,' and it was getting applied to you. Of course eventually I had more of an understanding of what the word meant, and I was able to apply it to more stuff. Like 'oh isn't that a pretty picture' or 'mommy that flower is pretty' or even, and don't hurt me KP, 'hey this person is pretty too.' Like I said, I'm not trying to say this to get points. I just literally think that because I didn't hear the word used around me until I met you and then I first started hearing it about you… well, I think you were my introduction to the word pretty."

There was silence for a time.

Eventually, Ron broke the silence. "The result of all that was that I sort of thought of you as pretty since I first heard the word pretty. That's probably why I was able to use it to describe you anytime, even when I was upset, without even thinking I was doing anything that might be awkward between friends."

Kim finally smiled, and Ron knew he wasn't in any sort of dog house. He hadn't been sure yet and had gotten to rambling to defend himself. "You know, Ron," she purred, "I appreciate the honesty about how you just learned the word in relation to me, and it's not like I'm the only person you ever thought was pretty, but at the same time that's kind of sweet and I'm kind of flattered."

Ron grinned uncertainly and offered, "Well, the Ron-man aims to please?"

Kim was in silent thought a moment, then sat up straighter and looked him in the eye. "So, Ron… if you thought I was pretty right off the bat, are you curious as to when I started thinking you were cute?"

"When's that, Kim?"

She smiled broadly. "When I learned the word cute."

_**fin**_

**~*~*KP*~*~**

_**Author's Notes:**__ I must confess to being heavily inspired by the FFNet authors __**Michael Howard**__ and __**waveform**__ for influencing how I think of and how I present Kim and Ron in fiction. Their works are fantastic and must be read and re-read._

_Also, I must give props to __**Daccu65**__, and chapter 14 of his story _Back to the Mat_, for starting me thinking about the possibilities of exactly how Kim and Ron would respond to an interview of the Letterman/Leno/etc. variety. Now, the one in his story was outright hostile, but I still hadn't really thought of the idea of Kim and Ron being in such an interview before. Ever since I read that chapter of that story, I can't help but think of a thousand different possible interview conversations that could come out, both good and bad. Some similar thoughts arose from __**waveform**__'s _What a Year!_, but this is but one grain from the idea mill begun thanks to __**Daccu65**__._

_Thanks to any readers who have been willing to read this small effort. If you leave a review, I will be glad to provide a response._


End file.
